Analyzing Hacker News User Behavior Through Comment History Profiling
By
simonw
2mo ago· 5 min readenInsight
92/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
An everything bagel for the brain. Substantive, layered, well-seasoned.
Score92TypeanalysisSentimentneutral
Summary
The article describes a method for profiling Hacker News users by analyzing their last 1,000 comments using the Algolia Hacker News API. The author presents a 'mildly dystopian' prompt of 'Profile this user' and explains how to access comment data through the API, which has open CORS headers allowing direct browser access. The piece explores the technical implementation and ethical implications of creating user profiles based on comment history, framing it as an experimental approach to understanding user behavior patterns on the platform.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledHere's a mildly dystopian prompt I've been experimenting with recently: 'Profile this user', accompanied by a copy of their last 1,000 comments on Hacker News.
Obtaining those comments is easy. The Algolia Hacker News API supports listing comments sorted by date that have a specific tag, and the author of a comment is tagged there as author_username.
The Algolia API is served with open CORS headers, which means you can fetch it directly from a browser.
Here’s a mildly dystopian prompt I’ve been experimenting with recently: “Profile this user”, accompanied by a copy of their last 1,000 comments on Hacker News. Obtaining those comments is easy. …
